It's Ramadan. For the next thirty days, all the muslims in the world - including all my students - will be starving and grumpy during daylight hours.

They'll also be in no mood to study anything before sundown - and in my experience too busy eating, drinking and smoking after sunset. After Ramadan is Eid - three days of, well, smoking, drinking and eating.

Rammin'-it-dahn, so to speak. Was that joke in slightly bad-taste?

Ramadan's like lent...but in three things - namely Reverse, September, and Earnest. They actually do it, and believe in it, not like us anglicans managing to give up chocolate for two days out of forty.

So, that makes thirty days of students being either a bit useless in lessons, or more usually crying off lessons because they're 'weak with hunger', plus three of being too busy having fun, plus another three recovering from the fun. All of which means I'm broker than usual in August and September.

Maybe I should take the opportunity to go on a diet. Nothing but water to drink during the daytime.